Keeping Immich in Sync After Manual File Changes

[shalak]

I'm currently uploading photos via Nextcloud, and I often manage them manually through the CLI - renaming, moving, or deleting files directly. After making changes, I always rescan both Nextcloud and the Memories app to ensure the metadata stays in sync.

I'm planning to switch to Immich and use its app for uploads, with templates like {year}/{month}/{filename}. Will I be able to trigger a sync so Immich stays in line with any changes I make (e.g., moving or renaming files) after upload?

[bo0tzz]

No, you should treat Immich's UPLOAD_LOCATION as read-only. You can make manual changes in external libraries, but you can't upload to those.

[shalak]

I see. How does Immich know that there are new files in external library to index, run faction recognition etc? Can I manually trigger sync for those?

Bonus question: does duplicate detection work across UPLOAD_LOCATION and external libraries? e.g. if I already have given file in external library and mobile app tries to sync same exact file to UPLOAD_LOCATION, will it detect the duplicate and skip it?

[bo0tzz]

You can run the library scan job manually from the admin panel, or set it up to run on a schedule or use file watching.

does duplicate detection work across UPLOAD_LOCATION and external libraries?

no

[TheRealMaN]

It's sad, auto refresh after manual change would be great feature, like in Synology Photos for example. Thinking about move to Immich but this moment stops me

[stilsch]

It would be very nice to have a solution for this. Am sync FS to DB Button is all i need :)